Monday, November 6, 2017

Marvelous Mini Revisited

or I should say, remade... and then some.

To refresh, the image below is how I set my Marvelous Mini blocks a few weeks ago. In my previous post I confessed a change of heart, resulting in my turning around and picking it apart a few days later.

I really wanted to love this quilt. But the more I looked at it, the more I knew it wasn't ever going to happen. I found myself frowning instead of smiling whenever I looked at it, and more and more I had the inclination to just stuff it in a drawer.

Something had to change. This quilt should be all about the blocks, but they sort of get lost as rendered above. Instead of standing out, the blocks seem to sink behind the sashing, especially the red. Even the border fabric - pretty as it its - competes with the blocks.

My friend Pam and I worked on these quilts at the same time, and I rushed to complete mine (my excuse, btw) so we could do show-and-tell with our quilt group. When Pam held her quilt up, it took my breath away. She set her blocks in a simple, dark blue print, all the same. Very simple, very gorgeous. I knew immediately that's what I wanted to do with mine.

After picking it apart, I took all the pieces to my quilt retreat over the weekend, bent on reworking it with my new chosen fabrics.

Much better, don't you think?

The narrow dark blue sashing does a way better job of defining the blocks, even considering the fact that the outer "logs" are of varying value, many of them dark. Some of them disappear into the sashing, but I think that's ok. It adds interest, and keeps the eye moving. The printed border makes it appear as if the blocks are floating in space. With this rendition, the viewer's attention is definitely drawn to the blocks themselves. Which is as it should be, imho.

Now on to the rejected floral border and stripe. I still think is a brilliant combo and and an ideal setting solution for something, and I believe I had the perfect idea what to do with it.

I pulled colors from the border fabric - basically, browns, reds and greens, for sampler blocks. About half of these came from Lori Smith's book Fat Quarter Quilting, the rest from other sources, including a few from my brain. See, now these blocks let the borders etc. know who's boss!

Speaking of brain, mine didn't register the fact that the replacement sampler blocks were actually a half inch larger than the Mini blocks (I thought they were both 4" duh... ) and because I didn't have any more of the stripe sashing fabric, I had to go with fewer blocks. But I think it works better with the twelve blocks anyway, don't you?

With that done, I decided to attack my carton of 1" strips left over from the mini's. I thought maybe a little Log Cabin doll quilt would be a neat idea.

Not sure l'm done with this yet. Maybe I'll applique a big black crow on it somewhere, and call it "primitive" (insert winkie face) !

Anyway, I had a great quilt retreat, and all in all I think I did pretty good!

about me

I started making quilts in the early 1980's, and consider myself a traditionalist. I am mainly a hand quilter, and will keep doing it until my hands give out.
My very first influence was Marsha Mcclosky, who's beautiful chintz and blended quilts I love to this day. Early on I was "liberated" by Gwen Marsden. My favorite quilts are scrappy. The past few years I've been gravitating more and more to old-timey looking quilts and fabrics, including the wonderful reproductions now available. I also love folk art, and Americana.
Meanwhile, I'm in awe of and constantly inspired by some of the beautiful work I am exposed to. I thank all the wonderful artists out there for sharing your inspiration, encouragement, and beauty!